Rams surrender 19 point 2nd half lead, lose by 3

In what looked to be a nice out of conference “W” for VCU against former Sunbelt rival UAB Blazers, the Rams managed to snatch defeat from the hands of victory by surrendering a 19 point second half lead and were outscored by 12 in the final 1:50 of tonight’s matchup, losing 68-65 in Birmingham.

Once again the Rams were a tale of two halves, holding the Blazers to 21 first half points before giving up 47 in the second.

VCU’s 8 point lead in the closing minutes vanished behind 6 of the Rams 21 turnovers on the evening, as the Blazers caught fire hitting their final two 3-point attempts and added 6 additional points at the free throw line.

The loss was the Rams fourth of the season, and another road “L” in heartbreaking fashion after falling by 1 in overtime at South Florida.

Bradford Burgess lead the Rams with 26 points and hit 10-of-14 shots from the field. The junior from Benedictine added 6 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block in the effort.

Jamie Skeen notched his third double-double on the season scoring 14 points to go along with a team leading 10 rebounds.

Joey Rodriguez followed Skeen with 7 rebounds of his own, but continued to struggle shooting the ball hitting 1-of-5 shots from the floor. Rodriguez started the season with a 17 assist effort but could only manage 2 on the evening to go along with a team leading 6 turnovers.

Rodriguez has hit just 5 of his 32 attempts in all of VCU’s losses this year.

VCU will have 8 days to enjoy the lump of cole UAB gift wrapped their old rival before the Rams take on a 5-6 Wofford team out of the Southern Conference.

VCU School of the Arts (BFA ’07) and Center for Sport Leadership (M.Ed. ’10) alumnus, Mat has followed VCU basketball since the Sunbelt days when he’d attend games with his father. Worked as a graduate assistant in the VCU Sports Information Department for the ’09-’10 season, but has covered VCU basketball for VCURamNation.com since 2007.

1 COMMENT

I put this one squarely on the coaching staff. For some reason we have difficulty executing down the stretch and that begins with the confidence that the coaches convey in the critical end of game time-outs. We could have sustained 4 consecutive shot clock violations in a row and still won. Certainly no way to play the game but evidence of a poorly thought out game plan with regard to closing out with the win in mind. A blow out by UAB would have been easier to take than this self destruction!